Photography Made Easy or Crime Against Humanity?

Photographers Shaun Fenn and Jonas Olsson knocked on my door yesterday, it was 4:00 pm. Shaun had a taxidermiz-ed goose he got for a photo shoot, but the subject refused to pose with it.

He hands it to me:

SF:You've got to photograph Eli with this goose.
TA: Why? He doesn't hunt or anything. It wouldn't make sense.
SF: Just because it'd make a great photograph. Don't overthink it.

m

So...here I am having just completed a book where I really collaborated with my son with these very intentional concepts, these very curious and purposefull scenarios that we made up together. Now...in this quick moment, this fellow photographer is stopping by and asking me to act...not think....and just move forward. Make the shot. Don't worry. Don't overthink it. Just try. It's seductive and fun...I just move forward.

m
Eli is there. I ask him to take his shirt off to pose for the photograph. He asks for a dollar modeling fee. I agree. Shaun coaches him on how to hold the goose. I pull out a black duvee. Shaun holds one side, Jonas holds the other. We bang it out. 10 minutes max, we are done.

What did we get? Well...it doesn't really look like ECHOLILIA. It looks like the work of Shaun Fenn, Andy Anderson, some of the other heartfelt photographers working in this very American Breed tradition. It is beautiful. I show it to my wife, Cheri:

m

CS: That's terrible...you just used him as a prop. It just looks like what people think a striking photograph is supposed to look like. It's a copy of a copy.

TA: I know...but I kinda think most people won't know the difference.

m

m

Found Rainbow

Found Rainbow by Eli Archibald, 2010

I came home on Saturday night.

I got up early to get back into the world of the family and my son shot this photograph.

Luv From Minneapolis

m

And then...gotta also celebrate Flashlight Rental in Minneapolis. Everyone is loyal to Flashlight it seems...and that Day Of The Dead meets Lucha Libre graphic sticks in my head like only wonderful graphic design will do. And I couldn't be more pleased to discover that ECHOLILIA / Sometimes I wonder is a part of the Flashlight Library.

Visit Flashlight HERE. Buy ECHOLILIA / Sometimes I wonder HERE.

m

Darrell Eager

D.E. 8/2010

I stayed in Minneapolis and extra day after a recent shoot to deal with rentals and logistics and had the good fortune to have lunch with photographer Darrell Eager. It was too short, I was too distracted, I was headed to the airport, but one sentence stuck with me that so spells out the dedication needed to juggle art, family and commerce:

My energy early on was in the art world. I ran an auto body shop from 7 am to 6 pm. From 6 pm to 10 pm I did the family thing. Then from 10 pm to 2 am I used that time for my art. I could get exhibitions seemingly at will. But it was so difficult to make money.

Darrell Eager works commercially now. Like me he hates the Hipstamatic! Thus I had to shoot him with it. See his work HERE.


New work by D.E., 8/2010

From The Set

Just some snaps from the great time we had in Minneapolis last week, shooting a project for Edenspiekermann + Otto Bock. Great crew, great people all around including brilliant film maker Matt Ehling.

There are ad campaigns, and then there are projects that stick with you for the rest of your life. We just began, but from the looks of things, this may be the latter.

End Of The Summer Photo Poem

My son and I went to the town I was born and raised in and took these images.
Summer is over...time to start again...

Photo Safari + Mini Van, Howes Cave, N.Y.

m

Wilson In The Hotel Room, Schenectady, N.Y.
m

Hotel Hot Tub, Albany, N.Y.
m

L.M. At Kindergarten Door, Rotterdam, N.Y.

m

Secret Caverns, Howe, N.Y.

m

Metal Constellation, Jay Street, Schenectady, N.Y.
m

Salt Shaker, El Sobrante, CA
m

2722 Edgewood Avenue, Rotterdam, N.Y.
m

Jumpin' Jacks, Scotia, N.Y.

Price Chopper, Rotterdam, N.Y.

Minivan, Howe Caverns, N.Y.

TA Teaches Class, Gets Bottle Of Champagne

Art Academy Grad Student Brittany McLaren looks wholesome enough, but her work....oh dear. What to say? When she approached me about the possibility of working together, the shared thread that made it all a reality could only be described as "perverse humor". That we shared, as well as the acknowledgement that the Hipstamatic Camera Phone App signals the end of photography as we know it. Of course we used it to document our last class.

See Brittany's work HERE. Read her blog HERE.

Photography Is Dead, Part 2

Hipstamatic Camera App Pointed At A Blank Wall, August 2010

Révy Reviews ECHOLILIA

I was excited to read this honest review of our book from Suzanne Révy on A Grain Of Sand:

I recently and impulsively bought Timothy Archibald's self published book, Echolilia. He describes the work as a collaboration with his son. The pictures are intimate and personal without being private, and the book itself is big and gorgeous.

Like so many bodies of work I respond to, I wasn't sure, at first, about whether or not I liked it. It felt, I don't know, a little too commercial or something, but I found myself thinking about his pictures, and returning to the work to have another look. And as I studied the images, I found that in a subtle way the emotional connection between the photographer and his sitter profound, and the fascinating world that his young son seems to be exploring to be intriguing. Some of the pictures are presented as diptychs, one a portrait, the other, details and detritus of life with children, items such as notes the photographer or his son have written to or about each other, things collected, a bloody band aid, cut up paper scraps present us with the messiness of life with kids, and yet they photographed cleanly and neatly.

The mess of it all really can be beautiful.

m
-Suzanne Révy, from the blog A Grain Of Sand

Sunset In The Day

Sunset In The Day, 2010 by Eli Archibald

My kid produces alot of images on any given day and lets them flow on Facebook and his blog.
This one is a favorite I keep coming back to.